New Cake Recipe: Charoset

My two best friends from childhood are Jewish and growing up I was involved in a lot of their temple activities and traditions. They are still both very involved in their faith (one a Hebrew school teacher and the other works for Hillel’s national headquarters). Each of them has traveled to Israel on numerous occasions and I’ve always been amazed at the stories and pictures they bring back with them. They have inspired me to make a cake that would pay tribute to both the Jewish faith and to Israel.

I have been lucky enough to have attended many a Passover Seder with their families and I think it is one of my favorite holiday traditions, even though I’m not Jewish. The center of the Passover Seder is the Seder plate which has six items placed on it to represent the story of the Jewish exodus from slavery in Egypt. Charoset (also called charoses or haroset) is a sweet paste that is meant to recall the mortar the Israelites used to build the pyramids in Egypt. There are a few variations of Charoset. Ashkenazi Jews (who settled in eastern Europe) use apples, walnuts, cinnamon, and red wine, while in the Middle east it is usually comprised of dates and raisins instead of apples.

I really wanted to make a cake that was both kosher for Passover and that also incorporated Charoset. To make a Passover cake I needed to use Matzoh (or matzo). Matzoh is an unleavened bread/cracker that symbolizes the unleavened bread the Jewish people ate during their exodus through the dessert. During Passover no leavened bread (or cake) can be eaten, only matzoh or matzoh based baked goods.

To make my Charoset cake, I chose to use a combination of matzoh meal and potato starch. I think the potato starch helped give the cake a unique texture. Since I used matzoh meal instead of matzoh cake meal (which is finer) I pulsed the matzoh meal in a food processor for a bit to get a finer crumb on it. The other ingredients in the cake were salt, oil, sugar, and eggs (no leavening!).

I then made a batch of Charoset with apples, walnuts, cinnamon and red wine, but I couldn’t decide how I wanted to incorporate it in the cake. Grinding it into a paste would be how it is more traditionally served, but growing up my friends always left it chunky, so I decided to do both. I ground up half the Charoset and mixed it into the cake batter. I then divided the batter into cupcakes and filled the center of each with a scoop of the remaining Charoset. The result was amazing all on it’s own, no frosting or accompaniment needed. I can’t wait to make another version using Charoset made from dates and raisins!

Happy Passover!